NKVD Prisoner Massacres (1941) and their Consequences

[Ponury]

The attitude towards Jews was constantly changing for the better. In 1941, the Germans did not carry out mass murders or deportations in the ghettos. Then there appeared Council to Aid Jews, etc. In addition, the underground supported Jews with weapons and supplies before the 1943 ghetto uprising.

[wm]

More consequences.
28 August 1942, Warsaw
The appeal of the far-right Front for the Rebirth of Poland

In the Warsaw Ghetto, behind walls cutting them off from the rest of the world, several thousand condemned people await death. For them, there is no hope of rescue, no one to help them. Executioners roam the streets, shooting anyone who dares leave their home. They also shoot at anyone who stands at their window. The streets are strewn with unburied bodies.

What is happening in the ghetto is a repetition of what had been happening over the last half a year in hundreds of bigger and smaller Polish towns. The total number of those killed has already passed one million and it is growing every day. All are perishing – the rich and the poor, the old, women, men, youth and infants. In the name of Jesus and Mary, Catholics are dying just like Orthodox Jews. The crime of being born a Jew is punished by Hitler with the death penalty.

The entire world watches these crimes, the worst in history, and remains silent. The slaughter of millions of defenseless people is met with a universal, portentous silence. The executioners remain silent, not wishing to boast of their deeds. England and America remain silent. Even influential, international Jewry, which is sensitive to anything detrimental to its members, remains silent. Poles also remain silent. Polish politicians, friendly to Jews, restrict themselves to diary notes. Poles antagonistic to Jews declare themselves disinterested in a matter which does not concern them. Dying Jews are surrounded by Pilates washing their hands.

Our feelings towards Jews have not changed. We will continue to consider them as political, economic and idealistic enemies of Poland. Furthermore, we realize that they hate us more than the Germans, that they consider us responsible for their misfortune. Why and on what basis is a mystery of a Jewish soul, however, it is a confirmed fact. Nonetheless, being aware of these feelings, we are not exempted from an obligation to condemn a crime.

We do not wish to be Pilates. We do not have the ability to counteract these German murders actively. We can give no advice. We cannot rescue anyone. However, with our hearts filled with mercy, indignation and terror, we protest.
God demands us to protest – God, who forbids to kill. Our Christian conscience demands that too. Every human being is entitled to love their neighbor. The blood of the defenseless cries for vengeance. Whoever is not with us in this protest is not a Catholic.

[wm]

The attitude towards Jews was constantly changing for the better.

The main threat to the Jews were criminals and their close "ally" lumpenproletariat. Those people didn't care if the Jews were traitors or Bolshevik lackeys; they merely preyed on the defenseless.

[David Thompson]

Two unsourced posts From WWII Germany were atheists were removed, pursuant to forum rules. We're not much interested here in unsourced claims, or member notions.

[WWII Germany were atheists]

Whatever the exact number – 10,000, 20,000, 30,000, or what is likely, despite Gross’s estimate, the highest possible number, 40,000 – there is general agreement that over two-thirds of the victims were Ukrainians and one-fifth (or slightly more) were Poles.

If we consider that the total number of Ukrainians in Western Ukraine (about 5 million) was about three times that of Poles (about 1.5 million), then the relative size of the population loss was as great for Poles as for Ukrainians.

At the same time, the fact that the Massacre was an overwhelmingly Ukrainian tragedy, and thus an overwhelmingly Ukrainian shock and trauma, may go some way toward explaining why most observers appear to agree that Ukrainians, who were a minority in most Galician cities and towns, figured more prominently than Poles in subsequent anti-Jewish violence.

No less important than the number of dead is that they were discovered within the space of little more than one week, in a single sustained, relentless wave.
Every time the Soviets evacuated and/or the Germans entered a city or town, heaps of rotting corpses were found in prisons, ditches, or rivers. And since this was the height of summer, memoirists and eyewitnesses invariably mention the unbearable stench.
The fact that the NKVD spent scarce time and resources massacring and gratuitously torturing prisoners struck many Ukrainians and Poles as proof of their victimization at the hands of communists in general and Jewish communists in particular.
The Great West Ukrainian Prison Massacre of 1941 by Ksenya Kiebuzinski and Alexander Motyl

Two unsourced posts From WWII Germany were atheists were removed, pursuant to forum rules. We're not much interested here in unsourced claims, or member notions.

SOURCE
https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/a ... rn-ukraine

Due to a lack of reliable sources, exact numbers are impossible to determine; however, historians estimate that the NKVD killed somewhere between 10,000 and 40,000 people in dozens of prisons over the course of eight days. The ethnic breakdown of casualties in Western Ukraine roughly corresponded to population demographics: 70 percent of the victims were Ukrainian, 20 percent Polish, and the remainder consisted of Jews and other nationalities.

The attitude towards Jews was constantly changing for the better. In 1941, the Germans did not carry out mass murders or deportations in the ghettos. Then there appeared Council to Aid Jews, etc. In addition, the underground supported Jews with weapons and supplies before the 1943 ghetto uprising.

As a point of clarification because this can mean numerous things when you say

attitude towards Jews was constantly changing for the better

do you mean the Nazis, Polish, Ukrainians, Soviets, or someone else

[Ponury]

As a point of clarification because this can mean numerous things when you say

attitude towards Jews was constantly changing for the better

do you mean the Nazis, Polish, Ukrainians, Soviets, or someone else

Definitely Poles. Many Jews defended Poland in 1939. However, many remained in their closed communities, then in ghettos, believing in the miracles announced by the Germans. That they will have their own country, their own oases, they will work endlessly for the benefit of the Third Reich. And then it turned out that they are all to be killed anyway. They started looking for help. Poles formed the underground Council to Aid Jews (Zegota), from the communists to the independence underground they began to supply weapons to Jews. Many Jews served in the Polish Army during the war, they knew what weapons were for and how to fight. And so they fought. Underground Poland punished with death any informing on Jews, handing them over to the Germans, etc. In fact, Poles hid the largest number of Jews among other conquered nations.

[WWII Germany were atheists]

As a point of clarification because this can mean numerous things when you say

attitude towards Jews was constantly changing for the better

do you mean the Nazis, Polish, Ukrainians, Soviets, or someone else

Definitely Poles. Many Jews defended Poland in 1939. However, many remained in their closed communities, then in ghettos, believing in the miracles announced by the Germans. That they will have their own country, their own oases, they will work endlessly for the benefit of the Third Reich. And then it turned out that they are all to be killed anyway. They started looking for help. Poles formed the underground Council to Aid Jews (Zegota), from the communists to the independence underground they began to supply weapons to Jews. Many Jews served in the Polish Army during the war, they knew what weapons were for and how to fight. And so they fought. Underground Poland punished with death any informing on Jews, handing them over to the Germans, etc. In fact, Poles hid the largest number of Jews among other conquered nations.

Not sure my opinion on this statement regarding Poles as a whole (strongly disagree with the other options I listed). from my reading of Jewish sources that are written in non polemical way, I see both phenomena's reported amongst Polish where former anti Semites became saviors and visa versa with former friends becoming murders, looters, and bystanders. Though don't overdue it Poland hid the largest number of Jews among other conquered nations because it had by far the most jews giving them more opportunities, furthermore more jews were brought to Poland giving them even more opportunities.

(Makes me wonder if this is just major changes or due different sub polish groups might have had opposite reactions).
I'm curious if you think this Polish attitude towards Jews was constantly changing for the better cut amongst different demographics (urban/rural/noble/peasants/intelligentsia/military/church and geographic regions due to polish pre war differences, nazi only vs double occupation in those who were under different forms of nazi occupation, and how close to death camps, or major ghettos, major massacre sites etc. in places where ethnic poles were the minority versus majority, or any other types of factors I'm forgetting now) From my reading it seems there are major differences in the changes in polish attitudes to jews based on areas, and I'm wondering if you think we had both effects on the demographic level.

[wm]

The Ringelblum Archive
Underground Archive of the Warsaw Ghetto
Getto Warszawskie (volume 5)

After 03.1942, Warsaw
I. A.
Report entitled Poles about Jews
(From a conversation with Mr. I. A., Polish, an employee of the municipal office and social welfare, a highly cultured and educated person, with political and democratic views, a Christian believer)".

if Poles are reproached for their attitude towards Jews. If it is pointed out that it's beneficial for the occupier - then one can be sure in advance that the answer will be heard:
it is a payment for what was behind the Bug River. [i.e., in the Soviet occupation zone.]

[wm]

There was a thing I never was able to understand.
We don't know why Hitler did it, but according to Himmler, the Holocaust was necessary because:

If we cannot now obliterate the biological basis of Jewry, the Jews will one day destroy the German people.

According to Eichmann:

Without pity and in cold blood, we must complete this extermination as rapidly as possible. Any compromise, even the slightest, would have to be paid for bitterly at a later date.

That didn't make sense.
The Jews in the ghettos were docile and collaborated fully with the Germans. There was no resistance, no weapons, nothing.
Unless he was deranged (and he was), Himmler must have known that. The ghettos, especially the largest Warsaw Ghetto, were penetrated by a mass of informers. The Germans knew everything that was going inside.
Yes, in the end, with their backs against the wall, the Jews offered token resistance, but clearly, it was only in reaction to the Holocaust.

Objectively the Jews in ghettos of occupied Poland were no threat to the Germans whatsoever.
So why?
There is an explanation, Goebbels wrote this in his "The Jews are Guilty!" (November 16, 1941)

For their sake alone we must win the war.
If we lose it, these harmless-looking Jewish chaps would suddenly become raging wolves. They would attack our women and children to carry out revenge. There are enough examples in history.
That is what they did in Bessarabia and the Baltic states when Bolshevism marched in, even though neither the people nor their governments had done anything to them.

[John Miller USA]

The daily life of the inhabitants of the city under the Soviet occupation was a constant series of fears and anxiety before an unexpected arrest and deportation to Siberia. Very active assistance in determining the so-called lists of "enemies of the people" were provided to the Soviet authorities by Ukrainian nationalists, as well as Jews, who largely sided with the Soviet occupier.

If this statement was true how come jews were deported to Inner Russia much more than the Ukrainians in the same area?

Erwin Oberländer
https://vdoc.pub/documents/forgotten-pa ... n7arc188g0

And if, for instance, you look at western Ukraine, where at about the same time mass deportations were instituted of the upper classes which were predominantly Polish and Jewish, then you can see that they were replaced primarily by Ukrainians from the eastern parts of the lands.

[wm]

The Soviets divided people according to their class, not their nationality. So actually, it's not quite right to say Poles or Jews were deported.
In fact, all the "incurably evil" classes were deported/destroyed: nationalists, middle-class folks, elites, civil servants, army officers.

The Ukrainians collaborated in bad faith from day one and were able to fool the Soviets till the last weeks before the war (earlier, they used similar tactics against the Poles and later against the Germans). But even they were massively deported (the Archive mentions that entire Ukrainian villages were) at the end.

The Jewish collaboration was unique in the sense that only Jewish youth, lumpenproletariat, the poor collaborated, but Jewish elites were neutral or loyal, so it was more like a class collaboration and even Jews versus Jews too.
In interbellum Poland, the divide between the "medieval" (i.e., conservative, orthodox) and the "modern" Jews was really wide and brutal.

[Art]

If this statement was true how come jews were deported to Inner Russia much more than the Ukrainians in the same area?

These were refugees from the German-occupied zone in 1939. Why these refugees were predominately Jewish is easy to figure out.

Hard data on ethnicity of people arrested in Western Ukraine were provided by Gorlov and Roginskiy about 30 years ago. Totals from 1939 and until February 1941 included about 21500 Poles, 20000 Ukrainians and 12700 Jews.
http://old.memo.ru/history/polacy/gorrog_c.htm
More than 50% of them were actually illegal migrants, which also means mostly refugees from the German-controlled Poland. That explains a large proportion of Jews to some extent.

[wm]

As far as I know, the refugees (unless they belonged to one of the "evil" classes) were usually asked to "deport" themselves far away from the border. And they could choose their destination.

[CogCalgary]

As far as I know, the refugees (unless they belonged to one of the "evil" classes) were usually asked to "deport" themselves far away from the border. And they could choose their destination.

Sounds easy.

[Art]

The official formula was "refugees who applied for return to the German-controlled territory but were not accepted by the German government" (NKVD insuctruction approved in April 1940). Accordingly some 77-78 thousand refugees were deported to the inner Soviet regions in June 1940.
Those were people who moved to the Soviet-controlled zone during the war in 1940. A partial return of refugees was arranged with the German government in 1939-40, but it appears that Germans didn't want to accept all of them, especially Jewish refugees.